Prior to the advent of technology startups, all the business world had, was a mindset that resulted in the linear growth of organisations. Today's startups have global aspirations and adopt an exponential growth mindset that was unprecedented in incumbent companies. This new wave of global thinkers has encouraged entrepreneurs to rethink their approach to business scalability, and re-evaluate their efforts to create products and services that truly engage consumers.

Engagement has adopted new meaning - the average Millennial consumer will not associate with a brand whose mission and company culture doesn’t resonate with their own personal beliefs. Attracting this segment not only requires a fresh approach to brand marketing and communication, but, more importantly, it requires an overhaul of the team to include more Millennials; it’s very likely that only millennials understand how to market to millennials.

Large enterprises have also begun to recognize the need to employ Millennials, and expose them to a work environment that is conducive to get their creative juices flowing.

Enter Coworking Spaces: communities of startups, creatives, freelancers and small businesses - the majority of whom are Millennial companies that embrace the disruptive mindset as though it were their birthright. These growth-hungry businesses seek coworking spaces predominantly because of the value they stand to draw from the community - the ability to brainstorm ideas with other members, expand their business networks, and gain a new perspective on their own businesses.

Furthermore, the coworking business model not only provides access to a plethora of shared amenities and services such as - meeting rooms, wifi, refreshments and community lounge space, but also the flexibility to scale up and down the number of seats members sign up for, based on business needs.

A typical day in a coworking space would see member companies working with freelancers (who they have found within the space) on the next iteration of their startup’s Mobile app User Experience, members exchanging ideas while getting coffee, and meeting their next potential co-founder while engaging in an Event. Typically, hundreds of these members engage in events that are hosted daily; these include educational events such as How to pitch for your Series A, as well as recreational events such as Power Yoga in the middle of the workday.

These cohesive entrepreneurial ecosystems - flush with disruptors - have induced Large Enterprises with FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). The last half a decade has left large enterprises at an inflexion point - embrace a work culture that appeals to Millennials (the disruptors), or be disrupted by a nimble startup that does it better.

Fortune 500s are now strategically placing teams that they believe would benefit from a coworking environment. For example, large Financial Services companies in Bangalore have chosen to place their Analytics teams alongside the young digital-native demographic in order to gain fresh perspective on how to decipher complex data stacks. According to a CB Richard Ellis report, 40% of large global office occupiers surveyed are either already using or are considering coworking spaces.

The Propinquity Effect states that strangers who encounter one another with some frequency tends to develop friendships. While large enterprise offices stereotypically consist of cubicles that isolate employees from each other, coworking spaces are designed ground up to foster interaction among members of the space - resulting in commerce, strong bonds between members, and cross-pollination of ideas amongst the organisations that occupy the space.

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